Real Estate for the Dead

Yesterday I crossed off a thing to do on my list of things to do. I hesitate to actually put this in print.  Hold that thought.


     Frederick law Olmstead is one of the most famous of early 19th century landscape architects. He designed Central Park in New York and The Emarald Necklace in Boston. Of course I am most familiar with his work in Massachusetts. The Fenway, the Public 
Garden ( think Swan Boats), the connector to Boston Common, Lars Anderson Park, Arnold Arboretum. All these fabulous green places are linked together through the city to form a beautiful 'necklace' of urban green oasis.  And he did this at a time when there wre no greenies around. I love it. Early urban eco-conscious 19th centurian. He also designed Mount Auburn Cemetery over the river in Cambridge. When I volunteered for the Massachusetts Horticultural Society in the 1980's I got to take some landscape design tours there.  A most beautiful place. Special old specimen trees; like an arboretum.  It was the centerpiece of the then-1850's- new trend to build beautiful cemeterys on the outskirts of town in a rural park like setting. Rather than in the center of crowded east coast cities.  All very arcane gardener-y stuff I know.  I also got to work at the annual flower show and give tours to children.  I got to be one of the poster judges. A fun time in my life. Kevin was little then.  I digress.
      Frederick Law Olmstead was one of the trendy boys in Bean town then.  Lexington Kentucky as a town was a great admirer of all things Massachusetts in those days, having named their city after Lexington Mass in honor of those fabulous revolutionary natives.  Kentucky didnt become a state until 1792 . I think that's accurate. But they were here  before that as "Lexington". There are parts of downtown Lexington KY that look like Boston. Great colonial architecture. Great parks.
     So the Kentuckians hired good old Freddy to design them a cemetery here in Lexington. They went to a fatcat named Mr. Boswell and asked him if he would donate a piece of his land on the west end of town called Boswells Woods. Bos agreed.  Several of Boswell's  friends chipped in and BAM! Lexington has a top notch, award winning state of the art 'rural Cemetery' almost outdoing Mount Auburn.
      Several famous Southerners and Kentuckians are buried there. My friend's husband is buried there too--he's the only one I know. But you've heard of Henry Clay.
     As the youngest child of two youngest children there was a lot of cemetery visiting with my parents  as a little girl. It was never a morbid creepy thing. My grandparents and a few aunts are buried in a beautiful place in Boston and we would go visit three or four times a year for birthdays and Memorial Day  and sometimes Christmas for Nana's grave. We would get to stop at Friendly's for ice cream and then the greenhouse to  pick out flowers.  Dad would dig and Mom would plant and my brother and I would play hide and seek and read old names and spy on funerals and generally just have fun. I thought it was an Irish Catholic thing to do.  As a consequence to that family activity I have always visited cemeteries whenever I travel.  I have always included cemeteries in my walk routes wherever I have lived. I visited my dad's grave monthly for  ten years before I left Massachusetts. My parents look out at Boston Light from a hill overlooking Boston Harbor. I miss going there on Sunday mornings. I would get coffee, water and weed the plot and talk to dad about whatever it was that week.  Then I'ld go for a walk on the beach and a swim. It was better than going to Mass.  My siblings think this is weird. They never visited. I thought that was weird.  It's a beautiful peaceful lovely green place over looking the blue Atlantic. What's a gardener not to love? I've traded the Blue Atlantic for the Bluegrass. I'm getting ahead of my story.
     When my in laws died and then my father soon after I found myself in the position of having to help arrange wakes and funerals and burials and  gravestones. It was again another learning experience. The death industry takes advantage of grieving people at a vulnerable time. To the end point of ripping them off. My in-laws had  million dollar funeral experiences.   My dad's was a little less extravagant but my mother was adamant about the casket. A bronze thing that was ridiculously expensive. It was lined with silk and had a special pillow. I believe I said "Jesus Christ Mom it's not like he'll be uncomfortable or will care which pillow. And why does he need shoes? You can't see them. How do you even know this actual box will go into the ground? Its February in New England. The ground is frozen. You wont be here when they bury him."  SHE SAID "THIS IS YOUR FATHER AND THIS IS WHAT I WANT"  Ok Mum.
  Ok then spend all that money Mama but I'm not spending that on your funeral.   After a few months had passed she was more open to planning her own arrangements and liked the idea of some control, so we pre-payed for her funeral arrangements thirteen years before she died.
     Shortly after my father died, in fact I think it was the same year there was an article on the front page of the Boston Globe about a carpenter up in New Hampshire who had also been through several family funerals all at once and was horrified at the death industry rip off. I still have the article. So the  carpenter decided he would make simple pine coffins and ergo: The Frugal Yankee Coffin Company -- Google him.  I bought my coffin custom made for my height and weight. A Kosher box to boot. I decided then that I would not be embalmed ( have you ever seen an autopsy or been in a funeral home embalming room?) or cremated or waked. Like the Jews I want to go in the ground before the sun sets on the day I die.  "A good Jew is a good Catholic". That was Sister mary Marguerite. Those Jews are so smart.  At some near but later date, when everyone can get together have a nice  Funeral Mass and a nice sit down dinner at some fancy restaurant for all who want to attend and celebrate my life all for at least 75% less $ than the death industry. 
     Well I drove up there and picked up my coffin and it fit, well almost fit in the back of my Explorer. So yup, you guessed it; on my way down I-95S I got pulled over by a New Hampshire State Trooper. It really was a funny conversation and I had to show him the receipt and the newspaper  article, and he made me open the back of the car but I wouldn't let him open the screwed shut top. I picked it up myself to prove it was empty and after a while of just sorta standing there looking at me he started to laugh and said " Ok get outa here."
     I also have a coffin story involving the movers when I left Massachusetts for Kentucky.
 I'm amazed at how freaked out some people are about the whole death thing.  I mean there is not one of you that wont have your mother die eventually. It shouldn't be a foreign concept, a verbotin subject. That's how it's evolved into a rip off industry. I've been hauling my coffin around for fifteeen years now.
     So this last Tuesday,  I went over to the beautiful Olmstead designed Lexington Cemetery and after several previous visits finally decided upon where I will gaze eternally into the night sky. I bought a plot in the old historical section and one of my close neighbors is Mr. Boswell!!! I will be the youngest chick in the hood by at least 150 years, even if I live another 30 years which we are hoping for here. And I have saved my children the nasty chore of doing this themselves. No ripoffs, no funeral home visits. No box buying with silk and pillows. They'll just have to arrange the post Mass dinner party. I want a raucous Irish Wake except I'll already be in the ground and no one will be commenting on my makeup.
    Although I am fighting the good fight  and believe the numbers are good, and suffering through this rigorous  three drug weekly infusion for six months!!! chemo trial, without a week off (I whine here) I am quietly executing plan B just in case. I think of it as estate planning. We're all gonna die, some faster than others and it's somehow oddly calming to be crossing things off my bucket list. It's like a second chance at a carefree life. I'm planning  vacation trips, I'm giving stuff to my daughters and nieces and some friends. It's wonderful to feel I can shed/ share some family stuff without waiting till I'm 90 like my mother and then have stupid girls fighting over it. Wonderful balm for the OCD brain I have. The nuns were right. Do the work now and then enjoy your stress free leisure time knowing you did the work first.  Thank you Sister Mary Beatrice. She's the one who taught me to write in he second grade. RIP.
 Lesley and Ros and Pat thank you for encouraging me to write this here. It is clarifying in so many ways. xxx